


Once Upon A Drink

by Kendrickhier



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Christmas, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Ice Skating, Magic, Mistletoe, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrickhier/pseuds/Kendrickhier
Summary: Super Santa Femslash 2019aka the cheesiest piece of MJY Christmas fluff I could think ofLucy opts out of celebrating with her family this Christmas, intent on spending it alone in a bar, where she meets Alura, who doesn't have anyone to celebrate with in the first place. With the nudge of a little bit of bartender Christmas magic the two decide to spend it together instead.
Relationships: Lucy Lane/Alura In-Ze | Alura Zor-El
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33
Collections: Kendrick's Fics: Supergirl, Super Santa Femslash 2019





	Once Upon A Drink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainOfTheKryptonSpacemarines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainOfTheKryptonSpacemarines/gifts).



> Considering the prompts: Merry Christmas, Cap! I tried my best to model this after those Christmas romcoms, so I hope you'll enjoy that ^_^

Once upon a Christmas Eve, there was a young woman who decided against spending Christmas with her family. She had her reasons, most certainly, each one as valid as the last, none of which changed the fact that she would be spending her Christmas all on her own. ‘Twas this very evening she entered a bar, keen on forgetting her sorrows and drowning her loneliness.

Lucy took her seat on one of the bar stools heavily, eyes only on the bartender. She was lucky, for they’d just finished with another costumer and had seen her approach.

“And what can I get you, could I interest you in tonight’s special? There’s a pinch of Christmas magic in every glass,” they said with a charming smile and a wink, gesturing at the drink they’d just served to the woman next to her.

She shrugged. “Sure, why not? I could use a Christmas miracle right about now.” Nothing else would make her father see the errors of his ways, that much was certain; Lucy had tried so many times, but he just wouldn’t budge. Or shut up about it. If he at least wouldn’t bring it up every time she was there it would at least be bearable to be around him, but alas, no such luck. He was determined to remain a xenophobic ass until the end.

Her sister tried to keep her from leaving, of course, but she wasn’t much better. It wasn’t the same issue, but Lois had her ways of making her feel like she was lesser, somehow. She really didn’t want to deal with that today. Nor tomorrow.

With the bartender preparing her drink, Lucy turned her head to look at the woman next to her. A brunette with long wavy hair that obscures most of her face from this angle, what with her head tilted downward, clearly looking at her drink as she swirls it around. “No better place to be either?”

It prompts the swirling to come to a stop, bottom of the glass placed back on the bar. She doesn’t look up, and for a moment Lucy thinks the woman is going to choose to ignore her, but then she speaks. “No one to celebrate the holidays with.” Her voice is low, filled with grief or self-loathing or some other kind of sadness. “What about you?”

The stranger looks at Lucy then, and Lucy is struck by just how beautiful her face is, with its sharp lines that somehow don’t take away from its softness. It doesn’t last long though, empathy pulling at her heart’s strings when the heavy expression dawns on her. She responds, “No one I want to be around.”

It’s that moment when the bartender brings Lucy her drink, which she gratefully makes use of to look away and focus her attention on the drink. Anything better than remembering why she’s here and not with her family.

She wonders if things would be different if her mother was still here.

“Well then,” the stranger starts, mercifully shaking her out of that thought process, as she raises her glass. “To drinking alone on Christmas Eve.”

Lucy smiles wryly, raising her glass in turn. “I’ll drink to that. To drinking alone, in good company.”

The addition earns her a small smile, echoing, “In good company,” before clinking their glasses together and both downing their Christmas special.

It doesn’t bite quite as she’d expected it to, but the amount of ginger is almost overwhelming. Yet… It’s not unpleasant. It still makes her feel warmer inside, and she can see how this drink would appeal to people. She makes a mental note in the event she’s alone again in the future. One glass is more than plenty, though.

Her eye catches on her neighbor again, finger tapping against her empty glass, when a crazy thought hits her. “You know,” Lucy starts, feeling both like she has nothing and everything to lose, “we don’t _have_ to spend Christmas alone.”

The stranger turns, quizzical, searching, calculating. Her eyes narrow briefly. “Are you suggesting-… What _are_ you suggesting?”

“We could spend Christmas together?” Lucy waits a moment for the words to process, until she can’t bear it any longer and continues, “I mean, what have we got to lose, right? If it doesn’t work we can still go our separate ways and spend it alone anyway, but if it does work we might have good company, it might be fun!”

“I’m… not sure that’s wise. We only just met– I don’t even know your name.”

She straightens at that, and extends a hand. “I’m Lucy Lane.”

Though still somewhat bewildered, she shakes the proffered hand, giving her name in turn. “Alura.”

A grin spreads, and Lucy doesn’t let go of her hand when she continues, “So does that mean you’ll come with me, Alura?”

Eyes flit between their hands and her face. Until they stop, and Alura’s body relieves its tension, giving a nod and careful smile. “Yes, I believe it does. Lucy.”

Her grin widens. “Then let’s go.”

* * *

And so, rather than continuing to drink at a bar, may it be alone or together, they set out to observe the happenings of the city. In particular, the giant Christmas tree at the center of the market’s square. Though not the tallest the world had ever seen, its 43 feet of length was an impressive sight to be behold, adorned with lights and streamers and Christmas ornaments. People naturally flocked towards it, to snap a picture or simply to take in its beauty. Alura and Lucy were no exceptions.

But Lucy, still entranced, had failed to notice Alura’s gaze had wandered to something else nearby. It had drawn its own crowd of people, gliding across its smooth surface. Her lips quirked up; it had been quite some time since she’d been on the ice.

Gently, she places a hand on Lucy’s shoulder to draw her attention, successfully so. “What would you say about ice skating right now?” Alura asks, tipping her head towards the rink up ahead.

Lucy follows the motion, and her eyebrows raise when she catches on. Eyes flit back to Alura, meeting her hopeful ones. “Sure, why not?”

With a widened smile and excitement in her heart she led them to the rink, renting a set of skates for the both of them without hesitation, ignoring Lucy’s reassurances she didn’t have to pay for both of them. Alura doesn’t remember the last time she felt this giddy about anything. The skates weren’t quite the quality she’d been used to, but standing on the thin bars of iron felt familiar in a way that had her sliding onto the ice as if no time had passed at all.

Like a breath of fresh air.

Lucy was right behind her, the clumsy way she got onto the ice gone entirely unnoticed by Alura. The first she noticed of her was when hands grabbed onto her side firmly, clearly having tried to come to a stop as the momentum pushes her forward gently.

Alura spins around easily, grateful for the irons being the short variety, hands settling on Lucy’s shoulders to steady her, amused. “More slippery than you remember?”

“You can say that again.” She looks away for a moment, but gathers herself quickly enough, looking back with confidence. “I got this though, don’t worry.”

A smile and a nod, and with that they’re off to skate around the rink at a relaxed pace. At least, to Alura it’s a relaxed pace. Lucy is capable of keeping up with it, but is far from relaxed even as she tries to glide in long and smooth strides like the woman beside her is doing.

Even on the outside is Alura faster in the turns, and it’s obvious to her that this isn’t Lucy’s comfort zone. Yet she trudges on fearlessly and even seems to be enjoying herself.

They continue like this for several rounds, Lucy gaining confidence, Alura enjoying the feeling of a breeze on her face. Until Lucy grins at her, which is all the warning she gives before she speeds up significantly; a challenge.

Far be it for Alura to not take her up on that. She, too, speeds up in pursuit.

This is when she really starts to feel how long it’s been. It’s not so much that Lucy is too fast as it is that her legs refuse to push as hard as they used to, especially now that they’ve been fatigued by what would barely have been a warming up when she was a child. She’s breathing heavier already.

She catches up soon enough, though.

Which is a good thing, because the moment she is right behind Lucy, about to skate next to her, she spots it. A speed wobble. Alura anticipates the sideways fall before it happens, swooping in to catch her with a grunt of exertion. Relief floods her system when Lucy’s solidly in her arms – waist on one side, legs on the other – and she managed to not drop her.

Lucy, for her part, looks entirely red-faced. She’s not sure if the cold is to blame for that, the skating, or the situation. “Uh, thanks,” she manages, meeting Alura’s eyes.

And oh, her eyes are quite beautiful in this light, in a way she hadn’t taken notice of outside of it. Or maybe she only takes notice now that their faces are this close together, she could close the distance with ease from here, could reach-

Alura snaps herself out of that train of thought, feeling her own cheeks flush further, and she quickly helps Lucy back to her feet with a quick, “Right, of course, you’re welcome.”

“So,” Lucy starts, one hand still on her to keep steady. “You’re stronger than you look.”

“You’re heavier than you look.” The moment she hears it come out of her mouth, she flushes _even more_ , utterly mortified; if only the Earth would swallow her whole in this moment. “That… did not come out the way I intended it to.”

Mercifully, she only laughs at that.

Alura manages an embarrassed chuckle in turn, before become hyper-aware of the fact that they’re in a public place, and the people on the sides are staring. Even some on the ice are watching them, and she gets the distinct feeling they will continue to do so until they stop standing around. “Would you rather get off the ice or shall we go a little further?”

“That depends… Will you catch me again if I lose balance?”

“Do you want to hold onto my hand?” The question feels like taking a risk. She can always justify it through arbitrary balance reasons.

That doesn’t seem necessary when Lucy smiles softly. “That sounds nice.”

They continue for a few more rounds, holding hands all the way until they’re off the ice. If they hold hands again after taking off their skates and going to Alura’s house, well, they can always blame force of habit on that.

* * *

Lucy has trouble falling asleep that night. She turns over once more in the dark and empty guest room, burrowing herself beneath the soft and cozy blanket on a mattress that really should not be this soft. She’s used to surfaces that are more solid than this. She’s also used to her surroundings to be much smaller, her own apartment paling in comparison to this… _mansion_ Alura seems to own.

“Old money,” she’d explained when asked. “The law pays well, but not _that_ well.”

Sighing, Lucy rolls onto her back again, staring at the ceiling. Would Alura be sleeping well here? The amount of space just made everything feel very empty to her, and she understands that Alura would be used to that feeling, but now it wasn’t just that. It was that, paired with the knowledge that there was _someone else_ in the same large and empty space, more or less on the other side of it. The guest room is probably the appropriate place for her, a virtual stranger, to be, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

That’s it.

She’s got to find out if Alura is asleep or not.

Wrestling the blanket out of the way, Lucy scoots out of the king-sized bed and gently opens the door to the hallway, padding down it softly. She remembers where most things are from Alura’s quick tour, and even in the dark it doesn’t take much to navigate to where she thinks she remembers her bedroom to be located.

Slowly, gently, she opens the door slightly, watching through the small space she leaves herself. When a small amount of light catches her eye, she nearly slams the door shut in a panic; Alura must think she’s a creeper. Truth to be told, she feels like it. She doesn’t have any intentions beyond finding out if she’s awake or not, but it’s the middle of the night and this won’t look good.

“Lucy?”

_Busted._

She opens the door properly then, sheepish. “Uh, hey.” Looking at her now, she can see the light comes from Alura’s face; glasses with a built-in reading light, she realizes. She can’t see the book right now, but suspects the shadow on top of the blanket is what she was reading. “Still up too, huh?”

The distraction seems to work, if only for the moment, when she lifts up the book as she responds, “Hard to resist a good story.”

Lucy walks further into the room to get a closer look at it. She can barely make out the title once she’s close enough. The Reckoning. In the back of her mind it rings a bell, has probably been on display in at least one of the local book stores, though she can’t say she knows what it’s about. The cover isn’t particularly forthcoming either, as far as she can see. Is that a barn? “Do you read a lot?” She settles on instead.

She hums. “When I have time.” The book drops back to her lap, and she flicks off the light when she looks back at Lucy. “So, what brings you to my room?”

And there it is. “Oh! I was, uhm, I was just looking for the bathroom, that’s all,” she explains sheepishly, gesturing towards Alura as she backs away and continues, “Got the wrong room, clearly. I should– I should probably go, leave you to it.”

A few beats pass, and Lucy’s almost at the door when Alura’s facial expression changes from a curious suspicion to amusement, which does nothing to reassure her. “I see. So it has nothing to do with sleeping so far apart from each other?”

Eyes widen. She’s sure she must look like a deer in headlights.

Alura’s amused smile only broadens, patting her book once as she continues, “I was reading because I had trouble falling asleep for similar reasons. Should you want to try sleeping closer to me, you are welcome to.”

The offer is noted and appreciated. Lucy does still duck out to go to the bathroom – while she’s here she might as well – but she returns and ends up on the other side of Alura’s bed. There’s plenty of space, they don’t have to come into contact with each other at all if they do not desire to, as they don’t.

At first.

Somewhere during the night the two shifted closer together, and by the time both were asleep they were practically on top of each other, utterly comfortable in each other’s warmth.

* * *

Unlike Lucy, Alura actually pauses long enough to do more than haphazardly throw on a coat and nothing else before she goes outside. She hasn’t strayed far by the time Alura does get outside, back towards her and looking up at the falling snowflakes. She’d seemed so very excited by the prospect of snow on Christmas day, especially to the amount that was currently present, that it was hard for Alura not to join in on the excitement. It _had_ been a long time since the last snowy Christmas.

Without a word, Alura tosses a bundle of her spare gloves at Lucy, hitting her in the back of the head.

She spins around barely a moment later, hand rubbing at the back of her head. “Hey!”

“Gloves.” She nods to the bundle in the snow. “Thought those could come in handy.”

Eyes are drawn downwards, before she scoops them up with a grin, brushing off the snow. “Good thinking.”

Alura nods her approval. She watches Lucy put on the gloves, mischief brewing in the back of her brain, waiting for the right moment; it’s been a long time since she’s had thoughts like this, feels entirely uncharacteristic and inappropriate, but she cannot resist it. When Lucy’s eyes are focused on the gloves she seizes the opportunity, ducks down to grab a handful of snow, and is back to her full height in no time, inconspicuously compressing it in her hands.

Lucy doesn’t seem to have noticed it, moving her fingers now that the gloves are on, getting a feel for them. “Are these your gloves? I didn’t think my hands were that much smaller, but–“ she chooses to look up at that point, at a grinning Alura. By the time she realizes what’s happening it’s too late; a snowball hits her square on her forehead.

A pause.

A now-gloved hand comes up, wiping the snow off, dismayed.

Eyes narrow at Alura, but the corners of her lips tick up as she says, “Oh, you’re gonna regret that.” She dives down immediately, Alura taking the opportunity to run for cover. Lucy manages to press enough snow together to throw before she reaches it, but the snow ‘ball’ passes right by her head. “Come back here!”

The only response she gets is laughter from behind a snow-covered bush. Lucy approaches, but when Alura pops back up with a snowball she quickly ducks behind the car instead.

A full-on battle proceeds.

They both manage to stack up on ammunition from behind their cover, ball after a ball being thrown and dodged.

At one point, while Lucy is replenishing her stash, Alura manages to hit her by lobbing a snowball right behind her car. The only reason she’s aware it was a hit was the following squeal from the woman.

Lucy manages to get the upper-hand after that, reinvigorated after getting hit on the head a second time and now strategizing. Rather than aim for her she aimed at the snow-covered branches above, prompting a large quantity of it to fall down on top of Alura.

But it turns out it wasn’t the snow she had to worry about.

Alura still tried to get a hit the same way she’d gotten it last time, certain she was going to hit her eventually. She’s just lobbed her last ball when something _very cold_ hits the back of her head. When she turns around she sees Lucy there, only a few steps away, laughing. “Got you!”

And entirely open.

Without second thought she charges ahead, managing to tackle Lucy into the thick layer of snow before she had the mind to get out of the way, laughter morphing into a surprised yell. It’s Alura’s turn to laugh now. “Got _you_.”

But Lucy’s still grinning. “You sure about that?”

There’s no way to stop the momentum as soon as she’s in motion, squealing when Lucy rolls them around. She doesn’t give in immediately, flipping them once more, but the moment is used to just roll Alura back into the snow. They’re still laughing when it happens again, until Lucy manages to pin her arms down and Alura truly can’t get any leverage anymore and has to surrender.

The laughter fades into panting, and she becomes abruptly aware of just how close they are to each other now, Lucy hovering above her just inches away. It’s even closer than when they were on the rink, though it prompts the same desires, only stronger.

She’s so close.

Lucy must have noticed it too, because she’s staring, and Alura notices how her eyes are flitting left, right, down, back up. They’re as bright as the sky above them – maybe slightly dimmer, the white of the snow is quite overbearing, which only makes those green (is it green? Is it grey? Alura can’t be sure) eyes more appealing to look at, but _her lips—_

“So…” Lucy says softly, unsteadily. “You’re… Not bad at this.”

It takes her a moment to realize she’s referring to the snowball fight, and not whatever it is that was or wasn’t going on between them in the moment. She smiles softly then, melancholy coloring it. “My sister used to drag me into these kinds of things, even when we should have long outgrown it. It drove our mother crazy. I think that might have been part of the reason she kept it up for as long as she did.” It had been a long time since then. She misses it.

Lucy rolls off her – part of Alura relieved for the space, another part missing her presence immediately – and is silent for a moment. But then she asks, “You and your sister sound like you were close. What happened?”

“What makes you think anything happened?”

“You’re spending Christmas with me instead of her.”

Alura sighs. “We… She…” No matter how much she wants to, she’s not sure how to explain this without ruining this budding connection completely. How could she tell Lucy her sister was in prison? Because of her, no less. Or at least, in part because of her. She could have prevented it, but she didn’t. “We had a falling out, of sorts. She wouldn’t want to see me.”

“I doubt that.” Alura skeptically looks at her then, only now noticing Lucy had been looking at her for who knows how long. It prompts her to continue. “I mean… I’ve never been as close to Lois as you’ve been to your sister, but… I don’t think there’s anything she could do that would make me not want to see her, y’know? We’re still sisters. We’re, like, duty-bound to see each other on the holidays.”

“You’re spending Christmas with me instead of her,” she shoots back, copying Lucy’s earlier statement, making her laugh.

“Touché.” She looks back up at the sky. “I did see her yesterday, though. She understands why I left.”

“And why did you?”

Lucy smiles sardonically. “Cause my father’s a bigoted jackass. If she knew what was good for her she would have followed me out. Spending Thanksgiving with him was more than enough for this season, thank you very much.”

Alura grimaces. She can only imagine. Mother wasn’t pleasant to be around either, but calling her a bigot would be inaccurate; her elitist superiority complex didn’t discriminate and applied to everyone, sometimes including family. Father didn’t try to temper this, though he didn’t always seem to agree. He came with his own set of high expectations though, which she supposes made them compatible.

She can’t imagine what it would be like for _Astra_ to come back once she’s out of prison. Their parents were bearable while they were successful, but after such a fall from grace… At best, it would be intimidating. At worst…

That’s assuming she wants to try at all. She’d understand if Astra went into self-imposed exile after, well, sister-imposed exile.

“So why wouldn’t she want to see you?”

Maybe it’s better to just tell her. Alura closes her eyes. “She’s in prison because of me.”

“Oh.”

She hears something fall into the snow next to her, probably Lucy’s back – when did she get up? There’s a silence. A damning silence. She must be judging her now, she must have ruined all the potential good that was blooming between them; not only did she ruin her twin’s life, she now also ruined Lucy’s Christmas.

But she still lying next to her. Alura expects her to get up and leave, as per their agreement, but she I still lying there. Instead of being condemned, it’s a question she gets, “What’d she do?”

It’s enough that she dares open her eyes again, though still aimed above her. “Ecoterrorism. You might have heard of the Myriad incidents.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard of that. Supposedly they only caught the leader because of…” Lucy trails off.

That’s it. She knows now. Alura closes her eyes again; she betrayed her own sister, which is something she could never forgive herself for. She couldn’t allow Astra to continue with her destruction. It was pointless, they didn’t listen to her, they would never give into the demands of someone deemed a terrorist, but that didn’t stop her and so _someone had to make her stop_. Alura was the only one who could have done so.

She startles when Lucy grabs her hand.

Why isn’t she leaving?

“I’m sorry. That must have been hard.” Lucy sounds so sincere in her words, so understanding. It’s enough to make Alura look at her. She has to see for herself that this is genuine. And it is, nothing on her face contradicts it, it only empathizes the understanding. It’s the last thing she was expecting, and feels like it’s the last thing she deserves. But it’s what she gets.

“It…” She swallows, and turns back to look at the sky. It’s not something she’s ever been able to talk to someone about; she doesn’t quite know how to respond to it. “It was. I didn’t think I’d ever be in a position where I’d have to choose between her and doing what’s…”

“Right?”

Alura shakes her head. “Lawful, I suppose.”

There’s a brief silence. And then the crunch of snow, before Lucy appears in her vision. She settles back on top of her, hands gently holding her face. Gloved hands. That are still cold and wet from the snowball fight. Yet she can’t bring herself to complain about the gesture. “You are not responsible for her actions, okay? She made her choice. She put people in danger. There is nothing wrong with putting a stop to that, even if it’s your family.”

The words hit their mark, each one dislodging part of the weight of the burden on her heart. It doesn’t fix everything, but there’s a big sense of relief, and it’s the lightest she’s felt in a long time. She puts a hand on top of one of Lucy’s. “Thank you.” Then, she gently drags the hand off her face. “But this is getting _kind of cold_.”

The other hand is gone in an instant. “Oh shit, I’m sorry!”

Alura chuckles, and laughs even harder when a red-faced Lucy rolls back to her side. When the laughter dies down, all they’re left with is a comfortable silence as they lay next to each other. It’s a similar comfort to last night, the only exception being the lack of cuddling. Not a complete lack of contact though, for they soon enough are holding each other’s hand again.

It’s just them, and the snow both beneath and above.

* * *

Eventually, the two of them had made it back inside. The first order of business had been food, and during this Alura had the sense that her house felt awfully barren for this time of year, making the second order of business putting up a Christmas tree. She hadn’t put one up for years, but remembered she still had a tree in the attic that could be set up. The decorations were sparse however, and thus the majority of their day was spent making decorations to put in and on the tree.

Lucy didn’t mind. Neither did Alura. In fact, the two had fun, thinking of what could be made into ornaments. They found popcorn in the cabinets and enough thread in the sewing kit that could be made into streamers. Printer paper and paperclips had easily been cut and shaped into snowflake ornaments, and some various other shapes they could think of. Lights, mercifully, didn’t have to be improvised. Neither did the big star on top of the tree – a gift from Astra before she’d had to leave for Christmas that year, so she could be present in spirit.

The third order of business had been dinner, to which Alura had only been prepared for herself. ‘Food for herself’, as it turned out, was a lot more than Lucy had been anticipating. Alura insisted she was sharing what she ordinarily would have consumed by herself, and Lucy couldn’t genuinely tell if she was joking or not with the mirth in her eyes. It was enough to sate both of them, nevertheless, accompanied by pleasant conversation that extended long after the meal.

Said conversation eventually made its way to the living room, where the most recent order of business had taken place: watching cheesy Christmas movies. Or rather, laughing at the amount of cheesiness in said Christmas movies. In spite of themselves, they still found themselves enjoying the predictable Christmas magic that surely had no plausibility beyond the movie.

Surely, Christmas magic wasn’t _real_.

Surely, the magic in their drink had only been a _sale’s pitch_ and simply contained ordinary alcohol.

Surely.

Regardless. They had a good time the entire rest of their Christmas Day, cuddled up against each other on the couch by the end of it. They were so relaxed after their eventful day, huddled beneath a blanket together, that Lucy had to yawn, with Alura mirroring her soon after.

“It’s late,” Alura remarks as the credits of their latest movie roll, wiggling out from underneath and trying her best not to disturb the woman leaning against her. “I’ll go put the dishes away. Don’t go anywhere.”

There’s a hum that comes as a reply, though it’s more as a complaint against Alura getting up than anything else. She watches her gather the empty cups and bowls and take off. Lucy had every intention of staying put, until her eye fell on a bowl that was left behind. That makes her get up.

She almost laughs when she notices there is a single piece of cheese left in it, which she takes, before she takes off after Alura with the last empty bowl. She might as well now that she’s on her feet, right?

Navigating her way through the hallways, she manages to head straight towards the kitchen, attached to the dining area. She’s about to enter, when she spots Alura coming from the corner and quickly comes to a stop right beneath the archway.

Alura, mercifully, sees her coming in time too – _barely_ in time – and she gasps when she comes to her stop, startled. And only inches away from having bumped into her.

“Hi,” Lucy breathes, not daring to speak louder at this proximity, or perhaps simply unable to. The times they’ve come this close come rushing back to her mind, the feelings included, and she’s not alone in that.

“Hi,” is all Alura manages to return, just as far gone. The tension from those times has returned, the thought of kissing each other, the _desire_ to do so. The desire to pull each other close and eliminate that last bit of distance.

And oh, how close the two of them get to doing just that in that instance. They can guess what the other is thinking, but neither dares to make a move, dares to gamble on whether they are correct or not, unwilling to sacrifice what they have for what they both clearly, oh so clearly, want.

It’s Alura that intends to pull away first this time, her gaze straying away from Lucy to the archway above them. Much to her confusion, what she sees isn’t the plain layer of paint, but rather a small plant. “Did you put up that mistletoe?” She herself doesn’t recall putting it there – doesn’t even remember _owning_ one.

That’s because she didn’t.

Lucy looks, justifiably, just as confused when she looks up. “No?” She looks back at Alura, and they stare at each other, now with the knowledge of the fact that they are standing below a mistletoe. Together. Giving them every reason and excuse to act on the desires they have.

And, thank Santa, they finally do!

They close in slowly, cautiously, but they do get there eventually. Their lips meet, gently at first, unsure, but they grow bolder quickly upon first contact, and soon they are intertwined with each other, bodies pressed against one another, embracing, empty bowl dangling to the side when Lucy couldn’t find a nearby surface to put it on. It doesn’t matter. One free arm is enough, especially when Alura is holding her close.

In the distance, a clock strikes twelve times for midnight, officially putting an end to Christmas.

The two of them part, but remain close, smiling at each other. And then they kiss again.

And again.

And okay, the magic may have worn off and done its job, but it may have done its job a little _too well_. Or maybe these two would have gotten together eventually even without it; it was only supposed to bring them together for Christmas, after all, and give them a nudge in the right direction.

When they part the final time, Lucy sighs, in a way that draws Alura’s attention. “What’s on your mind?”

“I wish every Christmas could be like this.”

“Maybe it could be. I’d very much like to see where this is going.”

Lucy smiles. “Yeah?”

Alura smiles back at her. “Yeah.”

And they do, indeed, spend every future Christmas together.

Now, I’m not a miracle worker. I’d love to say that Lucy’s father lost his prejudice and these merry celebrations included him, and I’d love to say Alura’s sister gained her freedom this very Christmas to spend time with her family, which she had forgiven.

Unfortunately, my reach is only as far as those who come to me in my bar. While they do try to return the next day, all they find is an empty building, for it only exists during Christmas time.

But what I can say is that Lois _will_ follow Lucy’s example soon and celebrate with them. What I can say is that Astra gets out and forgives her sister _eventually_ and celebrates with both Alura and Lane family. In the end, it will all work out.

And they’ll live happily ever after.


End file.
